The recent announcement, brazillian gov't madea big switch to Free Software. According to a good news site, the migration will hit 80% of installed computers.

This news pleases and displeases me in very different levels.

The adoption of free software solutions will cut some expenses from the federal gov't budget, which is definetly good. This will allow the current gov't to increase their effords/investments to reduce social problems, which is their main goal.

On the other hand, I fear that this choice was based only in economical factors. While I approve this as a citizen, my evangelist side points that this could mean trouble.

This migration will affect (as far as I know) not only back-end solutions, but office solutions too. Without proper care, most users will lost themselves using Linux/OpenOffice and whatever other softwares they get their hands on.

And not just that. There might be some proprietary solutions that still technically better than the open source ones.

Pessimist aside, I hope that this thing goes smoothly and the switch proves to be a well-suited choice and regional government do the same.